Corey Graves has admitted that his move back to WWE NXT left him with a chip on his shoulder.
WWE reshuffled its broadcast team ahead of WWE RAW’s Netflix debut in January 2025, a decision that saw Corey Graves return to NXT commentary alongside Booker T and Vic Joseph.
Graves appeared at NXT: New Year’s Evil on January 7, but was notably absent from the January 14 episode after publicly voicing frustration over being replaced by Pat McAfee on the RAW commentary team.
In a recent interview with Scott Fishman of TV Insider, Graves acknowledged that the move fueled his motivation. He admitted he viewed the situation as, “This isn’t where I want to be,” using it as added drive moving forward.
“Definitely. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. If anything else, that whole period in my career I looked at it and thought, ‘This isn’t where I want to be. This isn’t what I want to be doing. I’m going to show them.'”
Corey Graves believes relentless work ethic comes at a personal cost
“This goes back to the outworked next guy. I will be the hardest worker in the room. I will say yes to stuff people don’t want to do. Sure, it gets me in trouble with my wife from time-to-time. I’ve missed a lot of events in life that I’m not super excited about.
“At the end of the day, this is what I have done with my life. This is my life’s work. Yeah, when I got bounced so to speak, from that very first time, I intended to say, ‘I’m coming into NXT and will reinvent myself and show you guys I’m the best in the world at this.’ I kind of approached this with that mentality. It was very much a chip on my shoulder situation. I like to think I still have some of that chip on my shoulder because I’m still not quite back to where I want to be.”
Corey Graves has since returned to RAW to fill in on commentary.
